Moscow to be major world financial centre
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Highly liquid domestic markets, strong economic growth and a position at the heart of a booming region will make Moscow one of the world's top financial centres inside a decade, a senior Russia-based banker said on Monday.
"I have no doubt that this will be one of the biggest capital markets in the world and Moscow will be the second financial centre with London (in Europe) ... within the next five years or so," Stephen Jennings, the CEO of independent Moscow-based finance and investment conglomerate Renaissance Group told Reuters in an interview.
"The size of markets we have now (in Russia) are far beyond the wildest dreams of anyone five years ago."
Russia is currently in the tenth year of an economic boom, with GDP growing 8.5 percent in the first quarter of 2008. It was the world's third-biggest IPO market last year and Jennings said there was an "enormous pipeline" of potential issues.
"The underlying investor appetite is there. We just need a little bit of stability in the global markets," he said.
Renaissance is holding its annual investor conference on Monday and Tuesday and Jennings said there was tremendous interest in domestic growth plays in Russia, including government plans for big infrastructure investment.
"The Russian infrastructure play is one of the most exciting in the world in terms of potential returns," he told Reuters.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin last month requested parliamentary approval for $550 billion (280 billion pounds) in infrastructure spending between 2010-2015 and the Kremlin plans to spend at least double that figure by 2020. Continued...
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